Nairmis took a few breaths. Only after confirming that the killing intent overhead had not gathered again did he brace his hands on his knees and straighten up. His first reaction was not to check his own divinity, but to turn and check on the five nymphs.
Bracing his hands on his knees, he barely managed to stand steady before immediately turning to look at the nymphs. All five spirits had collapsed on the ground, their faces deathly pale and their expressions pained.
He hurriedly picked up his lyre. His healing divinity lit up, and golden notes flowed from the strings, settling over the five nymphs. Healing power seeped into their disordered auras, smoothing out those fluctuations little by little.
After Nairmis finished playing a song, he raised his head and looked toward the sky. His gaze was calm, but beneath that calm lay something slowly heating up.
Again and again. The killing intent that had hung over his head since the day of his birth was like a blade that never fell yet never withdrew. Every proclamation, every advancement required him to gamble with his life first.
If Uranus remained above him, no matter how much stronger he became, he would merely go from an ant to a slightly larger ant.
As long as Uranus existed, this world would never know a single day of true peace. The entire sky weighed down on every being's head.
He could not remain this passive. Uranus was almost suffocating him. Whatever he did-proclaim, record, advance-that gaze that might fall at any moment remained suspended above the vault of heaven.
He had to find a way to accelerate the course of history as soon as possible and bring that divine war forward.
But he quickly calmed down. As he was now, a Third-Class God, how could he possibly set the Titanomachy in motion?
The weakest on either side of that war would be First-Class Deities. He could not even approach the battlefield, much less intervene. He was merely a recorder, a maker, a healer. Those things could not sustain a war.
Just then, his Record Godhead trembled again. Another orb of consciousness sprang from its depths, larger and brighter than the last.
Nairmis's eyes immediately lit up. He sat cross-legged on the grass again, closed his eyes, and extended his perception toward the light. This time, the information coming from it was far more complete than before.
"Use... parchment... paint the future... paint those scenes that have yet to happen... that is your prophecy... Uranus... will sense it..."
The message ended there. The voice from the future vanished, and so did the light.
Nairmis opened his eyes, a little dazed. Painting the future-that was his prophecy.
But he was not the god of prophecy, nor did he possess a Prophecy Godhead. How could painting the future count as a prophecy?
Besides, even if he really could paint it and Uranus sensed it, wouldn't that draw his killing intent again? How was that any different from courting death outright?
But he looked down at his three remaining sheets of parchment, then up at the sky that had only just settled down. In the end, he did not hesitate for long.
Since his future self had said so, he must have his reasons. Right now, there was no better way.
He spread the three sheets of parchment before him and picked up the dark pigment he had already ground. Closing his eyes, he recalled things for a moment. Flashes of inspiration began to flicker, and he seemed to understand something. Then he opened his eyes and began to paint.
On the first sheet, he painted Uranus's hand reaching into a fissure in the earth, stuffing one of the Titans back into Gaia's belly.
On the second, he painted Cronus castrating his father.
On the third, he painted twelve enormous figures surging out of the split earth, raising their fists toward the sky. It was a scene of the Titans joining together in revolt.
The moment his final stroke fell, Nyx, goddess of fate, suddenly raised her head.
She sensed the power of fate gathering. The variable created by Nairmis's birth had originally covered the surface of the river of fate in ripples. Now those ripples were disappearing one by one, and the scenes of the future were being fixed.
Scenes identical to those on Nairmis's parchment appeared on the surface of the river of fate. Fate had previously grown uncertain because of that variable. Now the future was set.
She drew a deep breath. All of this had to be connected to Nairmis.
On her divine throne, the divine power within Nyx surged. She could not leave the Night Divine Domain in person, nor could an avatar, but she drew a strand of authority from the shadow divinity in the realm of shadows where her husband Erebus slept, incorporating it into the boundaries of her perception.
The next moment, through the bloodline connecting her to the goddess of day, her perception extended to the shadows of the tree beneath Hemera, where the goddess stood.
She saw them: three sheets of parchment, three paintings.
Nyx's gaze flickered slightly. Interesting. Before she could think further, she suddenly heard a faint, soft rustling nearby.
Her gaze shifted slightly. Hemera's body was almost pressed against the tree trunk as she looked toward Nairmis. Her gaze clung to him, and her fingers unconsciously clawed at the bark, having already gouged several shallow grooves. Primordial desire permeated the air, and her face was full of infatuation.
Nyx fell silent for a moment. Of course she knew what her daughter had been doing lately; she simply had not pointed it out.
As the goddess of fate, she knew there was no possible intersection between the paths of the goddess of day and this god of emotions. Neither a red thread of fate nor an opportunity to change things existed between them. Not even primordial desire could do it.
So she had never interfered, letting her daughter watch him from afar a few times to dissipate that infatuation, which would sooner or later cool on its own.
Yet now, seeing with her own eyes her noble, beautiful daughter, who had never shown such an expression toward anyone, suppressing the fluttering in her heart by clawing at tree bark, Nyx still could not help sighing helplessly to herself.
She withdrew that strand of perception from the shadows. She could not bear to look. She truly could not bear to look anymore.
At the foot of Mount Proeon, Nairmis knew nothing of this.
He was looking down at the three paintings before him. The Record Godhead within him was churning violently. Those futures that had yet to occur were being recorded, and the fixing of each scene sent the godhead's divine power soaring until, at a certain moment, it reached the peak of the third rank.
Immediately afterward, a strand of divine essence broke away from the edge of the Record Godhead and floated independently within him.
That divine essence shared the same origin and substance as the Time Divine Nature he had seen before, yet it was considerably stronger than the previous strand. Divine essence of the domain of time represented a point in time itself. He was beginning to be able to touch the domain of time.
But Nairmis did not examine it closely now. He stared intently at the three paintings.
Throughout the painting process, flashes of wisdom had kept flickering. At last, he connected those scattered thoughts.
He was the god of records. Anything in this world, once recorded, would be remembered by the laws.
Gods like them, acknowledged by the laws, could sense when they were called. And as the supreme god-king, Uranus would likewise sense it whenever a god called his name. His authority over the sky allowed him to sense it more clearly.
Painting him, writing about him, recording him-these were, in essence, also forms of calling him.
Nairmis suddenly thought of the story from his previous life about bringing a painted dragon to life by adding its pupils. The paintings already had form, but he had left out one crucial stroke: none of the depictions of Uranus had pupils.
He now had only one question: once the painting had eyes, would Uranus see the scene when he was called?
Actually, it might be good if he could see it. Perhaps it could advance the course of history.
But if he saw the second painting, Nairmis worried that it would affect the future.
With a flash of inspiration, he had an idea and picked up the brush beside him.